Sunday, May 24, 2009

As the European parliamentary elections loom - scheduled for Sunday, June 7 in Poland - the amount of space in the press and time taken up on air by stories about the anti-Lisbon Treaty Libertas party far outweighs the amount of votes they will get on polling day.

On February 1 this year, a few hundred delegates turned up in Warsaw for a meeting with Libertas founder, the Irish millionaire Declan Ganley, the man who helped successfully organise the “No” vote in Ireland’s referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. See video of Ganley in Poland in January here).

Although Ganley said, when everyone was wondering who would support them in Poland, that extremists would not be welcome in the Polish section of Libertas, a weird and extreme bunch turned up for the meeting. Mirosław Orzechowski from the catholic-nationalist League of Polish Families (LPR) was there, so was Konrad Bonisławski from the League’s old youth wing, All-Polish Youth, an organisation frequently accused of anti-Semitism and ultra-nationalism.

There were also disaffected politicians from Andrzej Lepper’s Self Defence and a few drop outs from the Law and Justice party, as well. If Ganley didn’t want the marginal and the extreme - and his central message about the 'democratic deficit' in the EU is correct - 'then he certainly has got them. Who else is there in Poland? The EU is the only game in town around these parts.

Fast forward three months to the pan-European launch of the Libertas election campaign in Rome on May 1 and who is one of the star speakers? None other than Lech Walesa, who had apparently, just days before, given his support to the European People’s Party, the largest voting bloc currently in the European parliament and made up of christian-democratic parties, with members including Angela Merkel, Silvio Berlusconi and Prime Minister Donald Tusk.

Walesa told the Libertas delegates: “Declan Ganley and Libertas have the potential to change Europe for the better. This European Project has all the ingredients to become a historic force for good in the world, and grow into so much more than it is today. But for the to happen, we need to heed the Libertas message and put the people back at the heart of the project.”

Walesa told incredulous Polish journalists after the congress that he did not support Libertas but was asked to speak at the manifesto launch. So he did. He also made no secret of pocketing appearance money, thought to be as much as 100,000 euros. Since then he has made other appearances at Libertas events.

Walesa’s motives for dallying with Libertas - a party which now has the official backing of LPR’s Roman Giertych - are not merely financial. Walesa is addicted to being at the centre of controversies and desperately seeks the limelight when he can get it.

But he has embarrassed Donald Tusk - and much of the Polish political establishment - by being associated with Ganley’s ragbag of extremists, populists and chancers.

Walesa’s antics have also ensured that barely a day goes by without Libertas making the headlines in Poland. Their campaign manager, Daniel Pawlowiec (onetime journalist for Radio Maryja’s Nasz Dziennik newspaper and junior minister for the League of Polish Families in the Law and Justice government) has got hours of free publicity from the Polish media’s obsession with Libertas, way and above the support the party has in the country.

The media exposure for Libertas in Poland - Gazeta Wyborcza has calculated that it has received the third most amount of airtime on public television, despite being nowhere in the opinion polls - is helped by the apparent support of the state broadcaster TVP.

It’s speculated that this support comes from weirdo TVP president, Piotr Farfał, who has connections going back years to Libertas affiliate for the European elections, the League of Polish Families.

But the contradictions within Libertas policies - which seem to change depending on which country it is campaigning in - are beginning to suggest that this strange coalition may not stay together very much longer than the election campaign.

The central message of calling for a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty may be easy for many to support. But Ganley’s support for internal markets within the EU - including campaigning for opening up labour markets for Poles in Austria and Germany - are in contradiction to recent comments from the Irish branch, and home, of Libertas. Party spokesperson Caroline Simmons has called for a Blue Card (visa) system to stem the tide of immigration coming to Ireland, which would, “reduce the burden to Ireland of caring for inhabitants of other member states,” she said. Libertas Ireland East candidate Raymond O Malley says we have “got to stop the tide coming in.”

The Blue Card system would limit the right of Poles and others to work in Ireland to two years and would deprive them of drawing welfare benefits, even though they would still be expected to pay taxes.

That a state broadcaster is promoting the interests of any political party - let alone one as marginal as Libertas - is, of course, a scandal. But the Polish media in general, and parts of the political establishment, seem to have a gory fascination with Ganley’s ragbag army.

And on June 7, Polish voters are going to make them all blush by ignoring all the fuss and voting for someone else - there has been no interest shown in opinion polls at all for Libertas - or more likely, voting for none at all. Recent opinion polls predict the turnout on June 7 to be under 15 percent. It was only 20 percent in the last election in 2004, just one month after Poland joined the European Union! The media might be fascinated by all this, but what the public feels about it seems to be a side issue.

80 comments:

Wałęsa is for and against Libertas and the EU but why should anyone be surprised? Marian Krzaklewski (right wing conservative) and Danuta Hubner (left wing liberal)* are running under PO colours. Wałęsa is simply more shameless (less shameful?) about his political apostasy.

PO's EU election ad more or less explicitly says you should vote for them simply because they're in the majority voting bloc in the EU - hardly a word about the policy of that bloc.

Turn out will be very low in Poland and this is because a) people don’t see the point of this vote and b) as you say: WHAT DO THESE PARTIES STAND FOR in the European parliament context. What are they proposing. What is their program?

Even looking at the EPP and other web sites…I still don’t get what they are all about?

I was caught unawares by this Libertas thing and so I decided to check their website. I was looking for a manifesto or at least some general policy goals. - Wow was I in for a disapointment!! No matter how hard i searched, I couldn't find anything of substance.

Their policy consised of if you want openness vote for us, and when asked in an interview how that change would be achieved, their British party leader explained that these were just details and that they would be worked out once Libertas were in powere. The important thing was the initial vote!!

Great system!!

As far as the voter apathy goes, well i can think of two possible reasons:

a) the voters are so depressed with the EU and the current situation that theey simply don't believe their vote will change anything.b) The EU seems to be working quite well by itsel, so why get involved. better to do something else, like go for a beer.

I reckon the second is closer, as generally Poles are happy with the last five years of EU membership.

I was caught unawares by this Libertas thing and so I decided to check their website. I was looking for a manifesto or at least some general policy goals. -I don't think the basic premise behind Libertas is that bad...that the EU is a farce and an insult to the democratic process and that the last thing Brussels wants is people defining in what direction the EU should go in. Witness their reaction to when the Irish dared to tell them to F off.

The problems with Libertas, as you say, is when you go looking for a policy beyond rejecting the Lisbon Treaty. There just is no policy. And when there is a policy, it seems to change depending in what country they are campaigning in.

It was the referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, an obscure but important document about changing the rules of the EU. The Irish - in a referendum which is part of their constitution - said NO we donlt want it.

Brussels was shocked. But the Irish are one of the only countries to have a vote on Lisbon. And all the indications are that many people of the EU would vote agaibst it. That's why most countries donlt have a ballot on it.

Which shows you the comitment of most of the political elite to democracy.

Br said: that the EU is a farce and an insult to the democratic process and that the last thing Brussels wants is people defining in what direction the EU should go in.

I never quite get the charge that is so often lain at the EU's door; that of being undemocratic.

The EU may have overlapping institutions that create a system of checks and balance which at first may seem mind boggleing, but they all have democratic systems at their heart.

The commission is often protrayed as a faceless unelected beast, but it is chosen and appointed by the variuos member-state governments who are all democraticly elected and so this is democracy, just not as we know it (Jim)!

The other two parts of the puzzle, the parlimnent and the council, are both directly elected by their respective sonstituents; be that in EU elections or national elections in the case of the council.

Does it not worry you that the political elites of Europe are so scared of putting something like the Lisbon Treaty/Constitution Treaty to referendums? If they are democratic then what are they so scared of?

Eh?

We get the patronising excuse that it's "too complicated" an isue. Which reflects the dim view they have of you and me.

Brussels is full of politicians who know they are isolated from the people they are meant to be serving, so they are constantly looking for ways to connects to us. It's a pan-European example of donestic politics. These people are isolated and consequently undemocratic.

Most people will not vote on June 4 to 7. An election which most people think is pointless IS pointless.

Hey, BR, I've noticed some other blogspot blogs that include a separate abbreviated posting of recent comments on the main page to the right of the main blog column, usually under the "about me" blurb.

The reason I bring it up is that I backtracked to the former discussion on Der Spiegel just now and found a bunch of really interesting and enlightening comments that seem to have been added after you posted this new commentary on Libertas.

The recent comments option would be a nice addition if you can manage it because it will alert us faithful readers/posters to new stuff we might otherwise have missed.

We seem to always return to the issue of a referendum over Lisbon. Lisbon mostly deals with the inner workings of the beast that is the EU, it will have very little influence upon the citizens of said beast. As you say, few bother to vote and so who would bother to read and then vote on the treaty?

But that's not the point. We don;t demand people read manifestos of parties in national elections - we donlt even demand that people are familiar with the policies of parties in national elections as a condition on whether they can vote.

It's the fact that political elites think that we cannot be trusted to make rational decisions about politics that is sooo patronizing.

But if people don't know what their voting about or for given that they don't read as you conclude, why should they be trusted to make rationale decisions about politics? Unless you think use of a divining rod is equal to reading...

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